A Family Moment
by fictionnutzy lightning
Summary: After Sydney leaves, Zoe is a little too nosy. It ends with a baby, a sister, and a threatened divorce, not to mention the realization that sometimes, being nosy can have good affects, like a fight between two sisters solved and a family together again. No pairings, [OneShot]


**Disclaimer: I sadly do not own any of the Vampire Academy/Bloodlines characters or story. But, this idea I came up with on my own. If there is any stories similar to this, feel free to give me the name so I can read them! I keep forgetting that this series is on FFN, so I'm not sure if there is a similar story or if this is an over used idea. If it is, sorry. P.S. I have only read to Bloodlines so far, so if this counteracts anything in the next books, it isn't my fault!**

~Zoe~

I stared angrily as my sister left. How could she? Why would she say that I was worthless as an Alchemist? I hurried up to my room, fighting back tears. Why would she do this to me? I just wanted to be like an Alchemist like her!

Nobody bothered me. Mom wasn't awake yet, so I wouldn't expect her to. Why isn't dad? Is he mad at me for being put down and not being able to argue with Sydney? Maybe he is just letting me calm down, he isn't very good at helping when we are upset.

Slowly, I fell asleep as tears ran down my face.

The next day, I was still upset, but I was too embarrassed to talk when Sydney called. Mom raised an eyebrow in question when she saw me. She mouthed 'Sydney', but I shook my head no to her. She didn't argue. I don't know if Sydney asked to talk to me or not, since I got out of there quickly before I was forced to talk to her. Now, I was starting to regret it. Dad was busy, so I didn't have to practice making chemicals today. He usually didn't have me practice the day after Sydney left.

I was walking up to my room, I had just went to get a drink of water, when I saw that Sydney had left her lamp on. She had a book sticking out from under her bed. I didn't want mom or dad to get angry when they saw that the lamp was on or that Sydney's room was a mess, so I went to clean it up.

I grabbed the book first. It was a regular composition notebook. It wouldn't be too odd, but we are home schooled, so it must have some tips for Alchemy work. Maybe it can help me? I switched off the lamp and took the notebook with me. I flipped the book open.

_ First Entry,_

_ Okay, I'm going to give this a try. I heard that keeping one of these would help, so that's what I'm going to do. I've had such an emotional overhaul recently, all because of him. _

Is this…is this her diary? I wondered, nonetheless, I kept reading.

_ Who is he? Keith Darnell, my newest enemy. When he came here, Carly and me were cautious. We suspected that dad had wanted a boy, and it seemed that now he would get someone to replace us. I think Keith is now dad's "pride and joy". Our suspicions were confirmed when dad gave Keith special lessons that even we didn't get. _

This can't be true! Dad still loves us! We are his own daughters. How could he love someone else's boy, someone we actually hardly know, more than his own flesh and blood?

_ Even that isn't all of it. Because Keith can do no wrong in dad's eyes, Carly was forced to date him. How could he make her date someone she doesn't want to? _

I gasped. Carly didn't want to date him? But…

_ It gets worse. See, Carly kept saying no. She didn't intentionally lead him on. She can't even think of how she did. But Keith wouldn't take no for an answer. _

He didn't…

_ He raped her. Carly came into my room earlier and told me the story between tears. She made me swear not to tell anyone. Who can I tell? Dad wouldn't believe me, and Zoe is too young to understand. I might be able to tell mom, but what could she do? She isn't an Alchemist._

I flipped farther into the journal. I had to know what happened when she was gone. Why did Sydney look so betrayed?

_ Dear Diary,_

_ I did it, I sold my soul to the devil. Well, not really. I might as well have. I made a deal with Abe Mazur, a Moroi who traffics illegal goods. He offered to get me out of Russia. For a price. I would owe him a favor. I should have refused. I should have just toughed it out. I definitely shouldn't have agreed to that and another deal._

Sydney! Don't be stupid! I wanted to yell at her. But, I couldn't, it already happened.

_ I asked him to stage a fake Strigoi attack on Keith._

She didn't… But it made sense. Why the Strigoi didn't kill him, just maimed him.

_ I just requested that they take one of his eyes. Abe looked curious, but I refused to say why. I would have preferred to have both of his eyes taken. Then he wouldn't be able to look at girls "leading him on"._

I couldn't fight the grim satisfaction I got from reading her revenge. I skipped ahead a little further.

_ He can't make another girl wonder if her family will hate her, or if abortion is the answer. I'm just thankful that she survived the birth, I would have been the only one who knew that she was having a baby._

I bit back tears, how come I never knew? I didn't know that Carly got pregnant. Is that why she never talks to us anymore?

_ Dear Diary,_

_ This is insane! I was requested to help hide the dhampir girl from Russia, Rose Hathaway. Not by Alchemists, by Lisa Dragomir, Dimitri Belikov, Christian Ozera, Adrian Ivashkov, and Abe Mazur. They said that Rose Hathaway was innocent, that she hadn't killed Queen Tatiana. I'm not surprised about that. My gut tells me that Rose didn't kill the queen. I helped them with a plan. I was going to help them bust Rose out of jail during the queen's funeral. I was so going to be sent to a re-education center. _

_ Dear Diary,_

_ We stopped at a motel. Rose kept complaining the whole time about where we are. She wants to help, but we can't let her. It has to be killing her. Now that everything is calm, I can freak out about what I am doing. I helped a criminal escape prison, not just any criminal, the one who is the suspected murderer of Queen Tatiana, I helped her resist arrest, and I don't even have any concrete facts that she is innocent that the Alchemists would take. I just trusted my gut on this one._

_ Who is framing Rose? I can't be sure, until then, I will have to keep my guard up. I doubt it was anyone that knew about the escape, they would have protested against it. _

Sydney lied to me? But, why? Did she think that she couldn't trust me? Why would Sydney help Rose out if she wasn't sure that she was innocent? And why is she helping out vampires?

_ It is hard getting used to all of these vampires around. I hear a commotion down stairs, I will grab our stuff and get us ready to get out of here quickly._

_ Diary,_

_ Rose had tried to escape. She almost did, but Dimitri predicted where she would hide. Rose isn't going to try and escape us for now, but only because we agreed to let her help. Well, now we are helping her. She has a note from Queen Tatiana. _

Why would she have a note from the Queen? Why wouldn't she use that as evidence that she didn't kill her?

_ According to the note, if it is true, Lisa has an illegimate half-sibling. That will mean that Lisa is eligible as queen and by us time to find out who killed the queen in the confusion. We just have to find out who her father had a child with, and find the child in time, or else it will all be for nothing and they will find and arrest all of us. How I wish that my loyalties weren't being tugged in different directions. I am glad that Zoe won't have to deal with being owned by the Alchemists. You can't escape them._

Oh, Sydney, why didn't you ask us for help? Mom, Carly, and I would have been happy to help you.

_ Dear Diary,_

_ Spirit users are creepy. Especially the spirit users that used to be Strigoi. Sonya Karp was a prime example. In fact, she was my only example. She was insane, I think. Rose gave her some odd looks. I think only Dimitri and I really understood that they were odd. The others, Sonya, Victor Dashkov and Robert Doru, Victor's half-brother, didn't know Rose as well as us. _

_ Sonya was going to direct us to Lisa's half-sibling. That was all she would do because she promised not to tell who it is. Well, I better put this up before I get caught writing in a diary, Rose may deny it, but I'm pretty sure she is in contact with one of the people back home. Either Lisa or Adrian, I'm not sure._

That was the end of the journal. I slid it under my bed and just sat down and cried. Eventually, mom came in my room. She had a basket of clean clothes for me to put away. I turned my head away, but she had already noticed the tear tracks running down my face.

"Oh, honey," she said as she gave me a hug. "What's wrong?"

"It's-it's Sydney," I choked out.

Mom pulled back to look at me, she looked confused.

"Honey, Sydney is fine, I just talked to her today," she told me.

"I know, but we had a fight, I thought she was being a jerk, she kept protesting about me going to do the job that she is on," I started spilling about how I found her diary.

"Baby, you shouldn't have read her diary! That is very personal!" Mom scolded me.

"I know mom, I didn't know it was a diary at first though," I protested.

"You need to apologize to Sydney for invading her privacy, but what else is wrong, you two have fought before without you breaking down," she ordered.

I looked at the diary as I answered, "Well, it's about Keith. She said that dad made Carly date him."

Mom frowned but didn't interrupt me. It was as if she sensed that it was going to be bad news.

"He raped her, he raped her mom!" I exclaimed.

"Who raped who?" Dad asked.

I jumped when he appeared out of nowhere. I hadn't noticed him enter the room, looking for one of us.

I looked guiltily at the diary.

"What is that? Answer my questions, Zoe," Dad commanded.

"How could you! You forced Carly to date someone that you were using to replace us as your children!" I suddenly yelled at him.

He started to yell back at me, but suddenly mom stood up next to me and jabbed her finger into dad's chest.

"You, you will not yell at our daughter for expressing her opinion. Now, either you will let us talk. As a family. Or you can be expecting divorce papers and for me to fight for custody," Mom said.'

Dad looked at both of us, torn between wanting to put me "in my place" and the thought of losing us. He grudgingly followed mom into the living room.

"Bring that," Mom said, pointing to Sydney's diary as they left the room.

I picked up her diary and followed them out.

"Now, Zoe, I think you need to explain to your father," she said 'father' in such a cold voice that he flinched. "about why you said what you did."

I flipped to the first entry. I read it aloud to both of them.

"Did you know? Did you know!" Mom yelled at dad.

He looked guiltily at her.

"No, but I should have, I should have known, she should have felt like she could come to me."

He looked like he was about to break down. An instinct hidden in me wanted to give him a hug, tell him that it was okay, everyone was fine. But, I couldn't. His mistake had caused too much trauma to Carly, sweet, sweet Carly.

"There's more," I said before reading the entry that said that Carly had been pregnant.

Mom actually burst into tears.

"Is there anything about the baby?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's a girly, her name is Daisy Marie Sage. She looks a lot like Carly," I double checked Sydney's diary to make sure I got it right.

That night, I called Sydney and apologized. We cried a lot. It was only topped by when Carly finally came home. She was worried but all of us welcomed her and Daisy in with open arms.


End file.
